The Enchanted Read online

  ‘If the balance of your mind really is still that disturbed, I will try to remember,’ Millie replied, giving her a look.

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as maybe. I was strong-armed into it. You know that.’

  Actually they both knew it. Georgina had rung every day to work on her mother to come back up to Richmond to babysit for her, and finally, as always, Alice had relented.

  ‘Anything for a quiet life,’ she’d sighed, giving Millie a craven look when she’d finally had to confess she had conceded. ‘You know how it is. If I don’t agree, I shall rue it for the rest of the year, or possibly even the century. She’ll stop me seeing the grandchildren, or move to Albania, or something!’

  ‘The sooner you move down here, the better …’

  ‘Your horse did a good bit of work two days ago,’ Rory now said to Millie, as they drove up the steep track that led to the gallops. ‘If he doesn’t do anything too stupid this afternoon, I’d say we really should run him again at Wincanton.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ Millie said, doing up her coat tightly in preparation for braving the elements on the hill, as Rory slowed the car to a halt. ‘Who’s that?’ She pointed to a tall patrician figure standing with another man, both of them with race glasses hung round their necks. ‘Some of your other owners?’

  ‘Someone who rents the gallops,’ Rory replied, getting out of the car. ‘Trains near by.’

  As the three of them walked across to where the other trainer was standing, they heard him calling to his owner.

  ‘Here they come now!’ he was shouting, pointing to a line of horses just cresting the hill, still some quarter of a mile from them. ‘They’ll be coming up and past. Yours should be leading, and if he’s not there will be questions asked.’

  Everyone watched in interest as the line of horses drew nearer. The air that had been absolutely quiet except for the sighing of the wind became full of the thunder of horses’ hooves, a noise that grew louder and louder as the line of galloping racehorses came up to where the five of them were standing and pounded past them, rugs flapping in the wind, work riders crouched over their mounts’ necks, reins threaded lightly through skilled fingers, balance perfect, half standing in their irons with their eyes fixed firmly on their chosen point, and then they were gone, the horses’ hooves fast becoming a faint and distant rumble.

  ‘Jolly good,’ the trainer said, a hand cupped over his eyes to shield them from the afternoon sun. ‘Looked good, your chap. Strode out nicely, I thought. We’ll go and hear what his lad has to say.’

  Sticking a cigarette firmly back in his mouth, the tall, hawk-faced man was about to return to his car, parked just behind him, when he was stopped by a shout from a man coming up fast on horseback.

  ‘Henry?’ cried the rider, a small man in riding-out clothes, with an uncovered race helmet strapped under his chin. ‘Sorry about that, chum! I sent my string up first because one of yours has got loose and is still about at the bottom of the gallops on the road! Hope you didn’t mind!’

  Then he was gone, cantering off after his string on his old hack.

  Alice stared after the retreating male figures as Rory and Millie turned away, their shoulders shaking.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she began.

  ‘It wasn’t his string,’ Millie replied, poker-faced. ‘He was watching another trainer’s horses.’

  ‘Easily done,’ Rory added, shaking his head. ‘When I began helping Dad, I tried to saddle up the wrong horse at Fontwell once. Two greys, couldn’t tell a spit of difference between any of them. At least I couldn’t. Ah. Here come ours – at least, after all that, I hope they’re ours!’

  Rory pointed to a distant line of horses thundering up the gallops and raised his glasses to watch the horses go past, all except one which cantered by about a dozen lengths or so adrift of the others.

  ‘Wasn’t that Jack?’ Millie said, pointing at the straggler who was now pulling himself up, opting to stop and eat grass rather than bother with any more work, in spite of his rider’s clearly strenuous efforts to get his head back up off the ground.

  ‘There is a possibility,’ Rory admitted. ‘He doesn’t always put his best feet forward up the hill. A morning glory he is not.’

  The three of them wandered over to where the unwilling horse was still happily grazing, ignoring all the slaps Teddy was delivering to his rump.

  ‘OK,’ Rory said as he came alongside the horse and rider. ‘So did he do anything right?’

  ‘Not a damned thing, boss,’ a still out of breath Teddy replied. ‘Got one of his stay abed days on. Come on, you idle bugger! Stop eating that grass!’

  Again, in spite of the directions and reminders he was getting from his pilot, Trojan Jack remained happily grazing, until, unable to put up with any more rib-kicking and rump-smacking, suddenly and without any notice whatsoever he put in a massive buck, ejected his pilot and with a flash of flying hind feet bolted off in the wake of his distant stablemates.

  ‘I think I’ll take up rocket science instead,’ Rory said, turning away with a shake of his head. ‘It has to be easier than this.’

  They arrived back in the yard well ahead of the string, which was being walked steadily back from the gallops. Alice asked permission to wander around the yard while Rory and Millie tried to form some kind of game plan concerning the errant Trojan Jack. She declined Rory’s offer of refreshment, as she was anxious not to miss her train from Salisbury.

  With an anxious glance up at the stable clock, Alice decided to fill in the time before leaving by looking round the top yard. As she walked into the yard she heard the sound of music from somewhere and traced it to a cassette player that was hanging outside one of the boxes. Curious as to who might be listening to this fine Irish tenor she looked into the stable and found herself being stared at by a small lop-eared horse that was standing to the side of the door munching contentedly on a mouthful of hay.

  ‘You like this, do you?’ she said, as the tenor began to sing ‘The Star of the County Down’. ‘This is your sort of thing, is it?’

  The horse continued to watch her, still chewing slowly.

  ‘You have lovely eyes,’ Alice murmured to him. ‘You really do have the most lovely, lovely eyes.’

  After more mutual staring the animal slowly laid back his ears and equally slowly curled back his top lip, as if giving her a smile. Alice laughed in delight, taking the expression at face value, whereupon the horse curled his lip back even more, revealing a large expanse of bright pink gum, a sight so comical that Alice found herself laughing even more. The horse immediately disappeared back into the darkness of its box, and Alice stopped laughing, afraid that her laughter had upset him. Not a bit of it, it seemed, since the horse reappeared as quickly as he had disappeared, with a new slice of wet hay which he then proceeded to shake so thoroughly that drops of water as well as loose bits of forage flew all over Alice.

  ‘Where’s the party?’ Millie enquired from behind her, having come to look for her. ‘You found a new friend?’

  ‘Just look at this horse, Millie.’ Alice sighed. ‘Isn’t he lovely?’

  ‘Could be a she.’

  ‘He isn’t. He’s a he. Isn’t he lovely?’

  ‘He’s certainly not enormous.’

  ‘Looks big enough to me.’

  ‘Yes, but then you’re not exactly tall, ducks. Come on – we have a train to miss.’

  ‘I think there’s something rather special about him, don’t you?’ Alice continued, staying when she should be moving on. ‘He’s got very wise eyes. And any horse that listens to John McCormack has my vote.’

  ‘Is that who this is?’ Millie was looking up at the cassette player. ‘I thought it was that man who used to sing on the TV in a cardigan.’

  ‘You have such a tin ear, Millie. But then you always did have, even at school. I wonder who actually owns this fellow?’

  ‘Ask Rory – here cometh the man now.’

  ‘No one owns him,’ Rory tol
d them. ‘Yet. He’s a newcomer.’

  ‘You mean he’s for sale?’ Alice asked.

  ‘I think I’m probably going to end up having to give him away.’

  ‘Why? Isn’t he any good?’

  ‘I don’t know how good or how bad he is,’ Rory replied. ‘He’s a long way off any serious work. He can jump, though. That I can vouch for.’

  ‘So how much would a horse like this cost?’ Alice persisted.

  ‘Your train, sweetie?’ Millie said, touching her arm.

  ‘Seriously, Mr Rawlins.’

  ‘Rory.’

  ‘How much would he cost, actually?’

  Rory looked at her, frowning, not thinking for one second that Alice could be seriously considering buying herself a racehorse, but even so, he knew that when it came to owners he had to watch what he said. If he named too low a price she might repeat the figure to someone who was thinking of buying a horse. There again if he quoted too high a price the same thing might happen, but this time it might deter any potential buyer.

  ‘As he stands, that is as an unknown quantity – although he’s young so he’s got all that going for him, as well as having no miles on the clock – we certainly wouldn’t ask anything less than fifteen thousand.’

  ‘Fifteen thousand. I see.’ Alice nodded, trying not to look either shocked or surprised. ‘But then that’s quite cheap for a racehorse, isn’t it? Not that I’m thinking of buying one, of course.’

  ‘Alice,’ Millie reminded her. ‘Not that I mind if you miss your damned train, but just in case you do, by my reckoning it is about to leave the station.’

  ‘I read that some sheikh or another only recently paid over a quarter of a million pounds for a horse.’

  ‘Guineas,’ Millie told her in a kind voice. ‘And that was for a stallion that had some rather good races. Now come along.’

  ‘I was only asking, Millie,’ Alice protested as she found herself being bundled into the car. ‘There’s really no harm in asking.’

  All the way up to London Alice found herself thinking about the little liver chestnut horse she’d just seen. Not that she herself actually thought of him as being particularly small, since she didn’t really know what size racehorses were meant to be, but she did think him odd; this was not anything to do with his conformation or appearance in general, but it most certainly had something to do with his appearance in the particular. It had to do with his eyes, the eyes that had watched her so closely, the eyes into which she had stared and by which she had found herself transfixed.

  I know what it is, she suddenly said to herself. Of course. I know just what it is. He’s been here before. He’s been here – before.

  The delight of her fanciful notion carried Alice through her babysitting, not that she needed any such mental distraction as far as her grandchildren were concerned. She adored them wholeheartedly, although like so many other women of her generation she privately considered that they were allowed to spend too much time in front of the television. As usual she turned the set off as soon as Georgina and Joe had left the house for the evening, and in spite of Will and Finty’s protests she read to them instead. After only a few minutes their tantrums abated, thumbs and sucky blankets went into mouths and they happily listened to nearly an hour of stories before drifting off into blissful sleep. Nothing more was heard of them all evening. Alice checked them before turning in herself, but the two children were still sound asleep.

  ‘What’s that tie you’re wearing, Grenville?’ Lynne wondered, as she finished her smoked salmon first course at dinner that evening. ‘Were you in the army?’

  ‘MCC,’ Grenville told her, trying not to smile. ‘The Marylebone Cricket Club.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know they had a club,’ Lynne said with a frown. ‘Where do they play? Down the High Street?’

  ‘Oh, very good.’ Grenville laughed, seeing it as a joke, while all the time trying to come to terms with the fact that it was actually Lynne sitting opposite him and not some illusion. He had already noted and been pleased to see the envious looks on the faces of several of the other male diners when Lynne had swept into the bar, looking like something that had just stepped out of a fashion magazine.

  Maybe not quite Vogue, Grenville thought as he assessed what she was wearing. Maybe a little bit more Cosmopolitan than Vogue, but who am I to criticise?

  ‘No, the MCC do not play down Marylebone High Street, Mrs Fortune,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Lynne,’ she interrupted him. ‘Anyway, I’m not Mrs Fortune any longer. I’m back to being plain Miss Faraday.’

  ‘Never plain and Miss is lovely. Just as long as you don’t become Ms. Sounds like an abbreviation for miserable.’

  ‘What do you do exactly, Grenville? If you don’t mind me asking. I remember you saying you were helping Gerry with something to do with business, right?’

  ‘I’m an investments manager, Lynne. In the private sector. Nothing to do with banks or anything. I work purely for myself, for my clients.’

  ‘You managed Gerry’s money, then?’

  ‘I was helping him build a portfolio. But he … he didn’t see it through.’

  ‘Hope he didn’t short-change you. He’s pretty good at that. I shouldn’t have said that, I suppose. Sorry.’

  ‘You don’t have to be sorry.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Lynne said, yet again. ‘Anyway – you were saying you were going to help Gerry with his car businesses.’

  ‘I was going to help him invest some of the proceeds, Lynne,’ Grenville said, remembering how long Gerry had kept him waiting for his cheque, a cheque that when it finally arrived was a couple of hundred short. ‘I think he simply decided to put his money elsewhere.’

  ‘Right.’ Lynne nodded, and sipped some champagne. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind some financial advice.’

  ‘You have money to invest?’

  ‘I have some money, Grenville. But I don’t know about investing it. I quite enjoy spending it.’

  Grenville nodded, took his glasses off and in order to buy a little time began cleaning them with the silk handkerchief from his top pocket. He knew plenty of ways to invest Lynne’s money, mostly ways that would be highly advantageous to him, yet he found himself resisting for the first time ever.

  ‘For the first time ever,’ he said out loud.

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Grenville said, replacing his glasses. ‘Just thinking out loud. No, look – look, if you’re enjoying yourself, provided you always leave yourself what my father used to call the rainy-day reserve for the times you may need a bit of money, if I were you I’d go on enjoying myself. After all, as someone once said, this life is not a dress rehearsal. I rather like that. Life’s not a dress rehearsal. Rather good, that.’

  ‘That’s a bit what I feel now, Grenville,’ Lynne admitted. ‘I mean I was all over the shop when it happened, the divorce – you know. It was just something I wasn’t prepared for. Something I just hadn’t imagined happening, fool that I was, and probably still am. But I’m sort of trying to get it together now and everything, and since I have I’ve started to think sod it – sorry. Sorry. I meant – I meant to hell with it. ’Cos just like you just said, this isn’t some blooming dress rehearsal. I don’t want to go through the rest of my life regretting not the things I’ve done but the things I haven’t done. Know what I mean?’

  ‘I do indeed, Lynne.’ Grenville nodded solemnly. ‘As they say nowadays, I hear what you’re saying.’

  Lynne gave him a shy smile, wondering how she was doing. She hoped she was keeping the ball in the air and convincing the man opposite her that she was one altogether together young woman, and not someone who was becoming increasingly certain that she was busy falling to pieces inside. If she could get him to believe that she was as fine as she knew she wasn’t, then there was every chance she would convince herself.

  The next morning, while their parents slept in after their late night, Alice got her grandchildren up, fed them th
eir breakfast – which, strictly for her sake, she knew, they ate at the table – and knocked on Georgina’s bedroom door to tell her she needed to be taken to the station to catch her train.

  ‘Oh, listen,’ a weary voice answered. ‘OK if you take a taxi? We didn’t get in till three, Mum. There’s some money on the hall table.’

  ‘What about the children?’ Alice asked. ‘They’ve had their breakfast.’

  ‘Fine,’ Georgina called back. ‘Just give them each a bag of Cheerios – they’re in the larder – and stick them in front of the telly. They’ll be fine. Oh – and make sure you pull the front door shut behind you.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’ Alice pulled a face. ‘As long as one of you is up and about to check them.’

  ‘Mum,’ came the familiar cry from the bedroom.

  ‘OK. I have to go, Georgina.’

  Having made sure there was something suitable for her grandchildren to watch on the television, Alice kissed them goodbye and took a taxi to the station, praying every inch of the way that no harm would come to them while their parents remained in bed sleeping off their late night. In the train she sat by a window watching the landscape gradually changing from urban to rural, and found herself enjoying the reverse of the feelings she normally experienced on such journeys: instead of leaving home to go somewhere, she now felt she was leaving somewhere to return home.

  She thought about her family and wondered how she had come to let herself be persuaded to make such a long and tiring journey just to babysit, knowing perfectly well that Georgina could have easily found someone else. So why, she wondered, had Georgina insisted that Alice come up to babysit all the way from deepest Dorset? There could only have been one reason for the summons from Richmond, and that was that her daughter had wanted to interrupt Alice’s holiday, just out of pique. She still wanted her mum at her beck and call.

  Alice sighed, but it wasn’t really a sigh of regret, rather one that could be taken to mark the end of something, a sigh of punctuation, the mark of coming to the end of a particular chapter, or perhaps even a book; and now she had finished that chapter or book she sensed there was a new one on the way.